If we learned only one thing from the final Miami-Dade Commission
budget hearing Thursday night it is that every county resident should run out right now — do not walk — and buy a life jacket.
Dozens of speakers begged the commission and Mayor Carlos Gimenez to allocate more than $300,000 on studying and mitigating impending sea level rise, which they call the greatest threat to our home. But we’re okay for now, the mayor said.
“It’s not going to be here tomorrow,” Gimenez said about the sea level rise, waving off the concerns from everybody else in the entire world.
Read related story: Mayor Carlos Gimenez turns deaf ear to public comments
If that isn’t a good enough reason to stock up on floatwear, here are 10 more reasons every Miami-Dade resident should own a life vest or two (one for the car or a day and night look) by next week.
Number 10: Because Carlos Gimenez sure as hell isn’t gonna listen when you’re shouting from your rooftops surrounded by water. He ain’t listening now, 
why would he listen then? He is not going to save you from sea level rise.
Number 9: Because if you have something to say, the county commission may pay more attention if you are wearing an orange flotation device across your chest.
Number 8: Because the Miami Herald likes orange too and @doug_hanks will take a photo of you and tweet it.
Number 7: Carlos Gimenez doesn’t want to scare tourists by talking about sea level rise. But when they hear about it eventually anyway, they may want a life jacket and you can sell yours for five times what you paid for it.
Number 6: Gimenez said, on the record, that there is no solution to sea level rise and, in fact, we don’t even know where to even start and our local universities need to figure this complicated climate change thing out… But, por si las moscas, the mayor is working on a public private partnership with China wherein the county buys life vests from Chinese investors for his top staff and the lucky people on his friends and family plan. But there will not be enough of those to go around for everyone.
Number 5: Commissioner Rebecca Sosa, the board’s designee on sea level rise, pointed out that the Caribbean is really Ground Zero, not Miami. Cuba and Haiti and Puerto Rico and Jamaica will be underwater before Miami-Dade, so flotation devices may be harder to come by. Or more expensive, probably, due to price gouging.
Number 4: Alligators don’t eat life vests. On his last trip to Paris, 
Carlos Gimenez spoke about buoyancy and flotation devices since he was pitching an air show in the Everglades and his French hosts were un poquito concerned about our famous reptiles. Alligators, Gimenez explained, repel the color orange and won’t chomp down on a life vest.
Number 3: The porous limestone bedrock that lies beneath Miami will absorb some of the rising sea level salt water and it will contaminate our underground fresh aquafiers. So you will need your hands free to hold your bottled Fiji water.
Number 2: Carlos Gimenez estimates that sea level rise will create 1,000 gondola jobs for which Uber and Lyft have already put in an unsolicited proposal. Gimenez noted that gondolas are very popular in Venice and will attract more tourists. But locals will need a life vest to ride. We needn’t worry, Commissioner and Transportation Czar Esteban Bovo is going to require that they charge a flat rate for rides to and from the future mega mall that will now be built on a raised platform (poured by Munilla Construction) in Northwest Dade.
And the Number 1 reason to get a life vest now is: So you can visit “Villa Flotilla.”
Now that some of the game changers 
are on hold, Carlos Gimenez wants the commission to consider giving economic development incentive and “infrastructure” funds to the “Villa Flotilla” project proposed by Dutch developers who want to build 29 lavish, million-dollar floating homes and an “amenity island” on Maule Lake. Because if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. But you’ll have to take a gondola to get there. And, as noted in Number 9, residents need their own life vest to ride.
Freddy Balsera and Carlos “C.J.” Gimenez, the mayor”s son, have already signed up to represent Villa Flotilla and Donald Trump is proposing a floating golf course.
Gimenez believes that, like the Dutch, 
Miami-Dade can turn this pesky sea level rise thing into an economic opportunity. After all, look at how life jackets are selling like hot cakes in Izmir, Turkey, as migrants flee the civil war in Syria.
Please, as you go shopping for your life jacket,
remember your four-legged friends. Our pets will also be affected by sea level rise and just because the mayor doesn’t care about animals, doesn’t mean we have to forget them. There are several online sites where you can purchase life vests for your pet.
And, like the oxygen masks in airplanes, please secure the life vest on your pet first, before putting on your own.
Happy floating!
Top 10 reasons Miami-Dade residents must buy a life vest added by Ladra on
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